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Trying to fix existing system vs. new system ?

I have a few questions regarding irrigation systems, as I know nothing about them. I will post each of them individually. Here is the background:

We inherited a sprinkler system 7 years ago, when we bought a house built in 1972 in Portland, OR. Supposedly (according to the person who maintained it but didn’t install it for the prior owner) the system was installed in parts over time, as it has both galvanized steel and PVC pipes. A few heads were replaced, some were shut down during the past few years. The system is functional but some of the heads no longer go down, some spray erratically and water the side walk and fences, etc. The maintenance guy tells us that "removing a sprinkler head is a major challenge; put a wrench to it and the pipe below may crack. One day soon you either see your water bill going high up or a muddy sink hole in your garden.“. The current system has 6 zones, an Orbit controller, a mixture of head types and 3 valve boxes. The house is on a slope so the ground is relatively flat in the front and back but sloping on the 2 sides. We have grass on all sides and some flower/bush areas.

I asked for proposals from the current maintenance guy and 2 more companies in this business and asked them for their professional opinion about potentially “upgrading" the existing system. All 3 only wanted to bid only on a new system, stating that probably I would end up paying almost the same for upgrading the old system with no guarantee for its reliability.
I got the 3 proposals, all of them quoted for a much higher price than expected and with contradicting recommendations and comments, which really confused me. I have no idea whom I can trust (or not).

I have an acquaintance who does mainly lawns for golf courses and garden design (but has formal education in landscape design & irrigation systems) who told me that he doesn’t think that I should rush to get a new system and that I can guestimate the potential reasonable cost for a new system to be about $600-$700 times the number of zones.

Since all 3 contractors only want to install a new system and warn me about major potential problems due to the galvanized steel pipes, I do not know whom to believe. Is there a reliable and easy way to determine the state/age of the galvanized pipes? The 3 contractors I talked to do not care to save the existing PVC pipes, they just want to put everything new. Should I just wait until something happens to them or should I pro-actively have a new system installed?